Thursday, January 3, 2013

Conscientious Objection More Successful Than War

Nonviolent movements continue abroad, most recently in parts of the Middle East. It is not just idealism that drives them to reject force; they also know it works. A study conducted by Erica Chenoweth of Wesleyan University and Maria J. Stephan of American University found that of hundreds of insurgencies from 1900 to 2006, more than 50 percent of nonviolent campaigns worked, while only about 25 percent of violent ones did.

So nonviolent efforts are twice as successful at achieving political ends as violent efforts. Must find that study, and it needs more study to be science. But note this...

Some of what the American peace movement fought for has come to pass: there is no draft, there are no special taxes raised to pay for war, the threat of nuclear Armageddon has receded and the country plays a leading, if controversial, role in multilateral institutions. Rooting out terrorists and intervening in civil conflicts, soldiers often do more police work than conventional combat.

Well, no draft does not equate to no war, just no anti-war, since the people dying are volunteers. "It's a free country" as we used to say. No special taxes gives the impression the wars cost us nothing, so who cares? Neither of these results is good. And then this -

Such complacency has allowed for the possibility of unending war. Because of the nature of intelligence gathering and weapons technology like drones, the government can use deadly force without popular support or approval. The president has claimed — and we have given him — extraordinary powers.

Yes, Hitler proved at Guernica that an all-air-war could lead to costless victory, until that was proven untrue. When Hitler was confronted with soldiers who could not abide the Final Solution, Hitler shifted to means that no longer required the soldiers. That proved untrue as well. Yes, we have given Obama the faculties that Hitler deemed good.